Chase This Light
by Lady Altair
Summary: Draco Malfoy needs something extraordinary.
1. the beauty's in what isn't said

Part I

_"the beauty is in what isn't said"_

* * *

_Chase This Light_

Draco Malfoy falls head over heels for Astoria Greengrass while he's sneaking out of her engagement ball (in the most literal sense; he trips over her.) She's sitting on the first of three stone steps leading out of the kitchen into the groomed back gardens of the MacMillan estate, elbows propped on her knees and chin in her hands, a fact he doesn't notice until his foot settles down on something too soft and silk-slippery to be a stone step, too busy trying to dig a pack of cigarettes out of his cloak pocket to mind his path.

He scrapes his hand in the gravel at the foot and ruins his entire pack of cigarettes in a disastrous and inconveniently-placed puddle. It's something of a small tragedy, in his opinion. And then there's Astoria.

The moment is a ripped, shoe-scuffed dress, a few scolding, half-angry words that sound more like a conditioned response than any actual sentiment, and a bummed cigarette ("_Those things are wretched for you anyway, Draco Malfoy, a completely disgusting habit…I've got an extra if you've got a light. They're girly menthols, just to warn you.") _before it falls into an indifferent, occupied silence.

They_are_ terribly girly cigarettes, too thin between his fingers, too fresh in his mouth, but the motion, the habit is enough. Astoria smokes hers with determination, looking with an almost cross-eyed intensity out over the MacMillan estate. The cinder-tipped cylinder in her hand is an anachronism to her elegant, old-fashioned robes, her dark brown hair pinned up in lacquered curls at least a hundred years out of modern fashion; a black oil smear on some pastel-shaded portrait. She looks like an old china doll, dressed in sage-green silk and thick dust, only twenty in years but rather ageless and inanimate in her sea-glass eyes; a doll in an attic with a quiet but nearly tangible sense of unhappiness in a cloud about her.

She's about halfway through before she turns to him, exhaling the smoke before speaking with a half-smile. "Sneaking out of my ball, are you?" Her eyes meet his with an unusual intensity; she has a magnetic, pulling gaze even when she speaks so lightly.

"Sneaking out of your own ball, looks like," he observes with a quick, meaningful glance at the door before turning his eyes back to hers.

"Ernie's too busy to dance," she says as though he asked why (he has the sudden, strange conviction that he _did,_without words, and she read it in his eyes). Astoria doesn't sound particularly sad, or resigned, but rather matter-of-fact and there's a song of arrogance in her voice,_who would be too busy to dance with me?_

He doesn't realise until she's left that most wouldn't have stayed at all, much less shared any sort of a conversation that wasn't dripping with disgust and condescension. Most would not have even looked him in the eye. For a minute, he'd forgotten that he'd been shown to a seat in a shadowy, undignified corner of the ballroom, that his conversation was limited to quiet words with his mother simply to keep up the show, that all the grace and respectability once woven into the Malfoy name has been unraveled and ground into the ashes of the war.

Draco doesn't leave like he intended to; there was something in the curl of her rose-pink smile as she toed the remains of her cigarette into the gravel. For his dignity, what little his family has left, he lingers by the kitchen door for a while before he follows her back into the ballroom.

It's quite a grand party; the MacMillans are always good for a fuss. A lot of good looking girls flitter about the white marble floor in a rainbow flurry of dress robes. Their glances dart away, eyes sliding away quickly should they happen to fall into line with his. And then there's a pair of cloudy-green eyes locked with his, and she's smiling; with just that, the world, the life Draco thought he'd thrown away at seventeen settles back into place (it's a bit rough in places, not quite as he remembers, but the flaws make it beautifully _real_.)

The whole high table falls uncomfortably silent when he approaches and asks her to dance. MacMillan sputters admirably when Draco asks permission (his toes curl in distaste, but Narcissa Malfoy taught her son _tradition)_, while Daphne, next to her younger sister, wrinkles her nose in suppressed mirth. Astoria's hand, small and white and aristocratically soft but for the wand callus on the curving joint of her first finger, is in his before anyone can summon polite, appropriate words to chase him off (if there are any, really).

Astoria comes alive in his arms, dust falling away from her stiff curls, her eyes, her smile. _I'm not too busy, _he tells her without words, locking his gaze with the only girl in the room who would dare look back, _if you're not too good_.

The biggest scandal high wizarding society will see in 2002 takes place in the two minutes Ernie MacMillan can manage to sit for the pretense of good will and good manners, before cutting in to reclaim his fiancée. Ernie meets his eyes for the first time and, even with the black fury in the man's eyes, Draco rather relishes the contact.

He feels a like a man again; there's someone looking him in the eye with jealousy, possession, _challenge_ in his gaze.

There's a cool smile that spreads across his face as he looks down at Ernie's reddening face. Astoria is fading back into dust as Ernie's hand grips her wrist, but her eyes are clear as she meets his for just a moment before he politely returns her to her fiancé, thanking the former Hufflepuff for the dance with his lovely bride-to-be.

Ernie grinds out some pleasantry completely voided by the hard look about his face, the challenge in his brown eyes and Draco smiles more broadly before congratulating the couple and returns to his seat next to his mother, watching Astoria's sage-silk figure glide in and out of the waltz-timed hurricane. She finds him in his seat over and over again, the sea-glass green of her eyes matching up with his when the sea of dancing people ebbs perfectly, clears a path between them. Her eyes light from behind in the short moments, and he's never wanted to chase anything so badly.

He laughs when he's off the MacMillan property like he hasn't laughed in years. Draco leaves them to celebrate an engagement that's never going to end in a wedding, and laughs as a man who knows he's already won the match.

* * *

Part one in a short series of Draco/Astoria one-shots. I've been working really hard on characterising Draco well, because he's one of the characters I have a hard time getting down just right, so please let me know what you think! 

Title and header quote from Jimmy Eat World's fabulous album, _Chase This Light_, everything else from Ms. Rowling.


	2. it's not perfection, how boring if it is

Part II

_"it's not perfection, how boring if it is"_

* * *

"What am I doing?" Astoria wonders aloud around the girly, menthol cigarette she's just dug out of her brown leather handbag, hands still sifting for her wand or the little ivory lighter (whichever surfaces first).

"What are you doing _what_?" Draco presses, eyes narrowed suddenly.

The lighter it is. She fumbles for the catch and lights the cigarette, calming only slightly as she inhales deeply. "What am I doing _here,_ what am I doing with _you, _what am I doing with _this,_" she elaborates, tossing the lighter back into the cluttered abyss and shaking her left hand in the air, the monstrous diamond (set in the ugliest sort of ornate antique gold) casting prisms of light in its motion. "All of this quite neatly summed up in the blanket statement, what the _fuck_ am I doing?"

Astoria looks at him, across the wrought iron of the café table on this side street in muggle Edinburgh, as though he's turned on her suddenly. And Draco has rather suddenly remembered that, even when the game is fixed, you still have to go through the motions. Maybe he'd had a slightly softer idea of what winning Astoria would entail when he'd tracked her to her office, to where she sat, bespectacled and squinting in concentration, behind the desk piled high with legal documents and scattered with broken quills.

He'd almost laughed aloud at the image; from what he could recall of her from school (not much; two years seemed like such a gap when you were a teenager) this seemed rather out of character. She'd worn the bronze and blue, yes, but she'd always seemed to be of the 'innately and undeservingly clever' genre of Ravenclaw, with no real work ethic or motivation; capable of great things but settling only for 'good enough.'

It was certain; Astoria was _no _Slytherin, unlike her elder sister (Daphne was half as clever, but twice as driven and she was probably better for it). She'd never had an ounce of ambition and that had always been clear. He wasn't sure if he respected her for that or not.

He thinks Astoria must've agreed to lunch just to hustle him out her stepfather's magical law offices as quickly and quietly as possible. The gossip following their all-too-short (in Draco's opinion) jaunt around the MacMillan ballroom has been malicious, to say the least. Well, in regards to him; Astoria seems to be consistently painted as the helpless maiden in the claws of the dragon (dragon, Draco, hah, how _clever_) and he's surprised to find that he prefers her characterised as such. The shame is nothing on his blighted name, nothing to the tattoo on his arm; he'll take it without complaint, claim it with pride, even.

Although, really, Astoria seems to have mistaken 'lunch' for 'chain-smoking binge,' waving aside the menu, ordering something called a 'cherry coca-cola' from the muggle café (in a strictly muggle district on the opposite end of town from the small, concealed wizarding side street, where absolutely _no one _they know would happen upon them) and, after unwrapping a new pack of cigarettes, she set in with a vengeance. Draco ordered the same, unwilling to admit unfamiliarity (and perhaps an accompanying discomfort) with his completely non-magical surroundings.

When the (rather disarmingly pleasant-tasting) glass of 'coca-cola' fails to provide him enough to do with his hands (he's _fidgeting_) he bums another cigarette, and Astoria shoves her newly lit one at him, already back at excavation in her handbag (the cigarettes and lighter have already sunk into the mire). There's a pale peach print sticky on the filter and the slide of it on his lips sends his mind to places he really hasn't got around to venturing yet because, up to now, it has been (surprisingly, for a man whose total experience in relationships can be expressed in Blaise's rather cruel title, "Pansy Parkinson: Resident Slytherin Slag") about respect (mostly Astoria respecting him, for whatever reason, but he's sure he'll find some way to return it eventually) and winning (because, _Merlin, _was Ernie's face the most satisfying sight he's seen in quite a while, and that'll be nothing to the inevitable day when Éliane Malfoy's blue diamond replaces the hideous hunk of gold and carbon still on Astoria's finger—he's made up his mind; if he's taking a ring, however ugly and unwanted, off her finger, he is putting another right back on.)

Just as Draco is silently cursing Lavender Brown's name and all her lineage for the ridiculously excellent way she's designed her new line of Muggle/Magic fashion, (especially the white, pleated blouse Astoria's wearing; it doesn't even _have_ buttons all the way up the front, how can he be blamed for a few surreptitious glances?) Astoria stubs her cigarette into the ash tray and gathers herself up to stand.

He's up as well, only a moment's delay and her wrist is in his hand and she's not fighting; it occurs to him that maybe she just wanted to make him touch her (if the Hat sorted women instead of little girls, Madame Malkin's could do away with skirts and jumpers trimmed in any other colours than silver and green; cunning, manipulative sirens, _all of them)_. He draws his hand down, his fingers light on her hand, brushing the MacMillan ring.

"You don't want that," he tells her, pulling his hand away (this girl is playing with a _real _Slytherin, she doesn't even _know _manipulation). Almost involuntarily, her hand twitches after his and she looks up at him, her lovely eyes wide and alive.

"I did once," she defends softly, twisting the ring around her finger. "When I was fifteen and he was brave and that was enough reason to be in love." Her head snaps up, eyes dagger-sharp. "This isn't about _you…_not entirely," she concedes, turning her face away, pale roses blooming on her high cheeks. "I was ready to just run away that day, before I ever even met you…just rip off those old robes and this fucking_ugly_ ring and those stupid curls and stop pretending to be happy," she says miserably. "I said yes _three years_ ago; what else do you say when your brave, lovely boyfriend gets down on one knee after your graduation in front of _everyone_and _proposes?_ He's a lovely, kind man but it's all too easy, too perfect…" she trails off, shaking herself out of the descent into rambling. "It's not enough," she finishes, with a lofty sort of quiet, "because he doesn't love me, it's all just convenience and childhood romance."

She settles back into her chair, drained, a bitter, wry smile on her face. "Do you even care?"

Very aware that dishonesty wasn't going to get him too far with Astoria (he's either getting too easy to read or she's just exceptionally perceptive, because he doesn't doubt for a second she'd know if he lied to her) he shrugs. "Not really, but it seems to be going in the direction I want, so please, do continue."

She really laughs at that, and her laugh is bright like bells on Sunday mornings in summer. Her laugh is light in Draco's ears and, maybe for the first time, he knows what happiness it is to create something beautiful, something worth enjoying.

He walks her back to her office, and they fall into an alley halfway between. She's up against the wall, his arms curled up around her, and their faces are so painfully close (he can hear, _feel_, her whispery-quick breathing, her heartbeat is jarringly out of sync with his, too fast and fluttery, and she smells so exquisitely expensive) but neither can bring themselves to close the distance. Her hands are curling over his shoulders, smoothing down his chest and the lowest part of his mind wants to take her to the most beautiful hotel suite in the city and find out what other beautiful sounds he can have her make (because that laugh he created is living in lovely, singing echoes in his mind and he wants more of _that_) but he can't seem to find a way to end this moment, because somehow this moment (there will only ever be one, just this _once_ in a back alley of muggle Edinburgh when he held her up against him and still didn't know how her lips felt) is far more precious.

They don't quite find a way to kiss in the alleyway; there are a few tentative tries, but somehow they never get closer than pressing their foreheads together. For the moment, the way her eyes meet his so calmly, searchingly curious, is a hundred thousand times more than enough.

When he walks away from her office block (she wouldn't let him walk her any closer), it seems rather obvious to him that he loves her. It's a bit worrying, really, recalling what she said about Ernie being too perfect and easy (he _was _listening; caring and listening are two entirely different things) because _this_seems deceptively perfect and easy (apart from the extreme case of Astoria being 'otherwise engaged').

And then, in a flash that settles his thoughts, he remembers he is Draco Malfoy, and things haven't gone easy for him since he was a teenager.

_Oh, thank God._

* * *

hOMg! My Percy/Penny fic _Stick Birds _got nominated for an award at dotmoon (dot) net !!! I got a livejournal message this morning and danced around for a little while! I'm also getting recced on the Quibbler Report on lj for the last chapter of this one, and _A Good Way to Fall_ got recced on coffee-and-chocolate (dot) com back in December. This is all super exciting; voting hasn't started yet, but when I found out, if y'all could go to dotmoon and vote for me? I think I might be a bit of an underdog, going up against some popular heavyweights like Harry/Draco and big long works with R/NC-17 ratings, and me with my short little PG-rated Percy/Penny, but I'm so pumped that I've been nominated and had the nomination seconded already it really doesn't matter!

Ah, and disclaimer: Another title inspired by Jimmy Eat World's kickass album _Chase This Light, _this one from the song _Here It Goes. _They're effing brilliant.


	3. can't keep safe what wants to break

_can't keep safe what wants to break_

* * *

It's the food of Witch Weekly's gossip columnist for a solid three weeks; everyone's waiting for the newly un-engaged Astoria Greengrass to be found in a compromising position in some dark corner of Knockturn with Draco Malfoy. 

_Ms. Greengrass has not so much fallen from grace as taken a headlong running leap into ignominy, should the reports of a romance with Draco Malfoy prove true,_ the newest wannabe Rita Skeeter writes in the oh-so-cleverly titled "DA to Death Eater?" _One must wonder at her state of mind, or perhaps consider an inventory of the potion ingredients to be found in Malfoy Manor…_

She wasn't supposed to _cry._

He'd waited an entire week to visit her, his pride all the while assuring him she'd be over soon enough, ready to leap into his arms and throw away the world. Impatience overtook pride soon enough, and he'd found himself at her father's front door, being rather pointedly _looked at_ in a vaguely threatening way by Astoria's stepmother, a tiny little woman whose powers of intimidation were certainly _not _relative to size.

It's all vaguely surreal and decidedly out of line with his plans (he'd imagined something along the lines of Astoria presenting herself to Malfoy Manor—or maybe arranging a middle-of-the-night theft of her from her childhood bed—the two of them running off to some exotic locale to marry, returning to England in a flurry of gossip too unimportant to touch them because they were _Malfoys)_. He is in equal parts disturbed and elated by the speed with which his planned courting of Astoria is flying down the drain, out the window, just _away_.

She's moping around her bedroom, wearing an oversized Montrose Magpies tee-shirt (that looks rather unsettlingly as though it once belonged to a male 'someone else') and no engagement ring. Her left hand looks inexplicably both bigger and lighter without it.

He proposes without words (none will really come to him, there's absolutely nothing he is willing to tell her right now), with just his grandmother's beautiful blue diamond, newly reset in platinum, held out to her. And she cries. Or laughs…something strange and harsh between the two.

She holds her arms out, palms out in a 'look at me' sort of gesture. "Are you serious?" is all she says, soft tears dripping down her quickly-pinking face while she chokes out something that sounds more like laughter than tears (it's hard to tell).

He reddens, angry. "Well, why not?" he spits mulishly, drawing the ring back to him protectively (like she's injured, insulted the ring—it's easier to pretend that it's the ring she's rejecting and nothing else).

She looks at him, tears stemmed and sounds muted, complete disbelief on her face. "Yes, because I'm walking away from a promise I made to someone I loved once. I'm making a mess of my nice neat life for_ you, _God knows _why!_"

"God knows _why?_" he fumes, both furious and very terribly afraid that she is about to run it all into the ground, send him away and never meet his eyes again and he'll be just as he was and never worth anything to anyone.

She looks terribly confused and a little unhinged, cemented in her childhood room and still attached to what was, the familiar. Astoria is lost in this, and if he doesn't catch her now, she's going to drift out of reach.

With a moment of sunlit clarity, Draco Malfoy understands exactly why they did not kiss in that alleyway in Edinburgh: he desperately needs something extraordinary, _right now, _to save it all before she turns him out in shame.

There is no shame for a Malfoy, not like this. He stands there in his tailored robes and smirks at her in her tatty pyjamas (it's all the show he has left) and puzzlement clouds her eyes, her head moves to look away but then the curve of her jaw is in his palm (he's almost not gentle in his quiet, concealed desperation) and his mouth is on hers.

_This_ is why.

He loves her.

He's never kissed anyone before (not like this, not in any way that ever meant anything close to this, this is the beginning of the world). He's ready to lay the world at her feet, to kneel himself alongside it because he is entirely unworthy of looking in her eyes; he's in love in a hundred thousand ways that he will never ever tell her, because he will never know how to, because his heart will always be just a little too proud to translate the words into anything more than quiet, subtle action.

It's entirely without words, but Astoria's spine curves under his hand, hands (ever-so-hesitant at first) curl around his arm, crumpling the immaculate fabric between her fingers.

He grins in smug victory when he pulls away and she follows for just the shortest of seconds before remembering herself. And then her eyes dart up to him, lovely green through short dark eyelashes and a grey smudge of leftover makeup, and the false smile fades from his mouth. Maybe he's learning to read, because her eyes say, _Oh, that's why._

"You ask me nicely, next time," she says softly, running her fingers down his arm (he _shivers_ and tries not to pull away when she—unknowingly? unthinkingly?—brushes her fingers over his left forearm and what is so carefully bandaged underneath his sleeve) and taps the box in his hand.

"I'm Draco Malfoy," he tries to crow, to sneer, but it all sort of falls down. "I don't do nicely, didn't you know?"

He's expecting something quick and sharp and playful back from her, but she just half-smiles, her head tilting and her hand wandering up to play with the messy, half-hearted waves her long, un-brushed hair falls into. It's casual, and Draco is once again struck with the fact that his words seem to mean less to her than what she reads so fluently in his eyes.

She steadies a hand on his shoulder and leans up to kiss his cheek. Then she sends him away.

When he does it again, there are no roses, no poetry, no words…nothing much at all. But Draco kneels before her (he hasn't knelt since…a Malfoy should kneel once in his life, he sees that now) and holds the ring up to her.

And Astoria takes the ring and throws her life, her name, her reputation, to the winds and smiles as she does it. He breaks her (or lets her break herself, maybe, but she would've lived unhappily on in her too-tight ceramic shell without him, a doll in a dusty attic) and she smiles as she redesigns herself, bright and real and he knows she always wanted to break, he just gave her a reason to.

* * *

Thanks to everyone who reviewed! It really is encouraging. And to those of you who haven't, please! If you've got just a little time to spare and you enjoyed this/found something you think could've been improved on, let me know! Suggestions are always welcome. 

Also, my Kingsley fic,_ Worth Saving,_ got recced on Coffee-and-Chocolate, a HP recs site, which was rather exciting.


	4. seen the best of love, the best of hate

Part IV_  
_

_seen the best of love, the best of hate_

* * *

They are married in Greece, in a pure-white village stark against the vivid blue of the Mediterranean Sea. Their sole witness, the housekeeper of the magnificent seaside villa Draco's bought Astoria as a wedding gift, speaks just enough English to congratulate them. 

Draco is very uncomfortably aware that this is the easiest part. Spending long, near-silent hours with her in the bright sunlight, admiring every night the new contrast of her skin against his (her fair skin tans beautifully golden in the Greek sun while he keeps carefully shaded under charms lest his pale skin burn red), the way she tastes of sea salt and white wine…it's all delightfully simple and uncomplicated, and what few people they encounter when they abandon the villa for the small town a few miles away don't know who they are, don't care at all.

And even 'easiest' is not easy. He bandages his arm carefully every day, covering over the ugly black mark (still stark, ever unfading) so Astoria need not see it, that the black-inked skin might not ever brush hers, even by accident.

She picks at the tape on the fifth night of their honeymoon; her face is pressed into his shoulder and he's so distracted by the gentle scrape of her nails down his arm that (for a moment) he doesn't even notice her turned attentions. He starts, pulling his arm away from her fingernails and accidentally smacks her across the face. Her head snaps back and he's quite wordless in horror; he's always regretted the Mark, but never so much as now, if only because it's made him cause Astoria pain. What a silly, petty reason amongst the horrors; an accident, a bloody nose healed in a moment and almost as quickly forgiven and forgotten…and it somehow means more. If he was anyone less (or more) than a Malfoy, he might feel shame at the thought, that this pain (however slight) is more real for its proximity, because it is Astoria, because she is _his._

Her nose bleeds and she catches crimson in her palms, saving the cream lace and blush rose satin of her nightgown from the dripping, ruinous red. There's no apology, there never will be, but there is regret and disgust in his eyes and she reads it there and it's about what she expected.

She rips the bandage off his arm (the tape rips skin along with it; it stings and he hisses in surprise) and uses it to stem off the blood, tilting her head back and awkwardly untangling herself from the bedding with one hand. Astoria cleans herself up in the bathroom, sparing her nightgown and the silk bed sheets.

The gauze and spellotape is in his hand to redress his arm, but a stark, imperious, "Don't," from the doorway stops him. Astoria looks like some stern angel, backlit from the sconces in the bathroom. "That doesn't go away just because you bandage it, Draco. Live with your shame, don't you _dare_ cover it up any longer."

He bandages it anyway, somewhere between defiance and humiliation.

She won't come back to bed. If they were Ron and Hermione, it would be a huge, screaming row. It's the same sentiment running in the undercurrent, but shame veneered over with pride keeps Draco quiet, and Astoria gilds her anger with cold, well-mannered words and frosty absence. He tries to come after her, to bring her back (these few first nights curled around her, his hand in her hair, face pressed into the faint remains of perfume and salt at her neck, the complete contentment of possession bred into his Malfoy blood, is enough to convince him he could happily spend every night for the rest of his life like this, and he cannot give it up so easily) but she flits away from his arms and he is far too cowed to lay a heavier hand to take her back.

She sleeps in one of the villa's other bedrooms and locks the door behind her (Seals it, in fact…not that he tries). He has a wretched dream that night. He forgets it by morning, but it will come to him years later in another night alone and he will recognise it: he holds Astoria in his arms again, in his bed in Malfoy Manor, cradles her as she cries and trembles, soothes her and strokes her hair with his right hand while his tattooed, traitorous left draws a knife across her throat. Her eyes are terrible when they're true sea-glass, dull chunks of cloudy green tumbled around in the ocean too long, empty and dead.

He wears long sleeves the next day, but he does not bandage the Mark. She's taking breakfast on the beach, a mug of tea on the arm of her lounge chair as she sits in the morning sun on their private beach.

One by one, she unbuttons the white shirt and her presence, the press of her lips to the line of his collarbone, is only just enough to still his instinct to fight her, to pull the shirt back and snap and sneer and push her away.

Draco only forgets when Astoria casts the shirt down to the sand and leans into him, the golden cast of the sunlight bright across the bridge of her nose, scattered lightly with freckles, her long dark hair in sea-salt-waves over her shoulders and lit through with sun bleached bronze.

"I won't settle for being less than that," she says, her words backed by the roar of the sea.

"Less than what?" he asks, already playing with the ties on her top and entertaining thoughts of reconciliation in the sand.

"Less than that," she says, tracing her hand over the black Mark. Draco flinches, pulling away slightly. "Less than your pride," she clarifies, pursuing him, her hand clasped over his forearm. "_That's_done, Draco. Let it go, let it just be a stupid mistake, a stupid tattoo and let it _go._ You already _are _something else; if you were still that Mark, I wouldn't lo…settle for you." (She'll never say it first, it's her own piece of pride. She'll never say the words because she'll never say them first, and she'll find she doesn't need to.) "So stop covering it up and move on."

With a haughty look (and insecurity in her eyes, he heard that slip, he's getting better at reading) she looks up at him. "I don't _settle_ for anything, Draco. You're not that Mark, and if you won't—"

"I will," he cuts in, some of his confidence returned at her uncertainty, her slip (there's a little bit of him that's ready to gleefully taunt her, _you were going to say you loved me! ha, I knew it, _but he's just as skittish of the word as she is).

"You will?" Astoria's voice is solemn, and Draco has the idea that this is their vows all over again.

"_I do_," he smirks. "Thought I'd already said that, Story, but if you want…"

With an exasperated sigh, she bats him playfully upside the head and he laughs and the moment is over (they're both relieved, Astoria's glad to be allowed to act twenty again and not have to remember all the little broken pieces that make them older), pulling her up against him again and finding the spot on her neck expressly engineered to drop her feet out from under her.

Curled up in the morning sun with her on the rapidly warming sand, he tells her (in all seriousness, but he buries it in a joke because, despite it all, the words are too much for him to be said in any other way) that there will never be anything to outshine his princess, that he will let the world fall down and throw away his dignity before he betrays her.

She's almost irritated at the words, they're so deeply steeped in false mockery, but she just curls her arm tighter across his chest and consoles herself with the fact that she loves the stupid bastard, God help her, and that's more than she ever thought she'd get. This is the closest to a fairy tale happy ending that anyone gets, anyway.

* * *

Thanks to everyone who's been reviewing! **Lavinia, Anomalous Anonymous, TheRavenclawNinja, cutemara, deathlyhallows777, miriamimus, slythandromeda, Calendar, respitechristopher, Cuban Sombrero Gal, Aria Gray, and The Sushi Monster.**

There are seriously not enough hearts to express my extreme gratitude for your kind and encouraging words. Y'all kind of rock. :)

I'm definitely in love with writing these two. I hope I'm keeping up and not disappointing with Draco's characterization...I'm trying really hard to keep him true to canon yet believably developed into adulthood. If you have any suggestions (on anything, really), I'd love to hear them!


	5. as i've always been

V

_as i've always been_

* * *

A rather shrilly screeched _You've got to be joking_, is the welcome-back they receive from Astoria's mother. She doesn't even let them in, framing herself in the doorway while shouting down curses on her disobedient daughter, threatening disownment and dishonour.

She leaves them on the doorstep, the heavy oak door swinging shut with as much force as she can manage, and Astoria nods resolutely, as though she's finished an unpleasant task that went exactly as she suspected it would.

"Brilliant. One less Christmas card to owl. Let's go to my dad's." Draco shoots her a look, and his wife smiles. "She can't disown me from anything, she's got nothing to leave me; her husband's got a son and he never liked me or Daph anyway. And my dad doesn't care either way."

They're welcomed into Green Lawn, Astoria's father's stately house, with open arms and congratulations. Perhaps not with approval, but then they don't really expect much of that.

Three days into the visit, just as they're leaving, Draco realizes Hector Greengrass is a Squib. That, for all the Greengrass' prestige and wealth and reputation, its patriarch drives an Aston Martin, not out of eccentricity but of necessity, and was educated at St. Andrews.

He has half a mind to be horrified, almost thinks he should look over at Astoria and see someone else, some tainted woman of a diseased family he's unknowingly merged with his own ice-clear bloodline. Instead, she's still there, hugging her dad goodbye as he extends an open invitation to visit. Hector holds a hand out and shakes Draco's firmly, smiling across at him, somewhere between 'equal' and 'paternal' with maybe just an edge of 'I'm trusting you with one of the most precious gifts I have to give to the world; fuck this up and I will not need a wand to kill you.'

He's still waiting for some delayed disgust or revulsion for his father-in-law; he catches sight of Hector in the window as he glances back at the manor house. Instead, an even more foreign thought strikes him; he really _likes _him.

"Yours, then?" Astoria ventures as they walk down the paved driveway. And it is something they've both been avoiding, but here it is. He takes her hand for side-along Apparition onto the Manor (supposedly all the blood enchantments on the estate were undone after the war, but he'd rather Astoria not find one that got 'missed.')

Lucius Malfoy does not approve of his son's choice in a wife. He tells Draco so in a missive from Azkaban, dismissing Astoria as a 'Squib's daughter' and warns his son that he's brought a weak link into the Malfoy bloodline and they'll all be muggles before three generations are out. He doesn't intend to reply, the respect and reverence he feels is still due to his father hindering his ability to write the words '_fuck well off,'_ nor does he intend to show it to Astoria. She finds it anyway; he has no idea until another letter flies in on one of Azkaban's weather-beaten post owls bearing a reply to and a copy of a letter Astoria Malfoy had sent her father-in-law, informing him in no uncertain terms that she was of a perfectly noble line, and she had married into another one, and was a Malfoy now, _the end_. Draco rather marvels over her phrasing, admiring the way she manages to imply 'fuck well off' while sounding entirely cordial.

He still starts a row with her over respecting his father, his phrasing perhaps a little too reminiscent of the reply he'd received along with the copy of Astoria's letter. Well, to be more precise, he tries to prod her along into an argument, fueled by his own pride, and her infuriating level-headedness riles him into a red-faced tirade until he's completely lost for words. She smiles at him, sweet and placid as you please, and pats his hot, red cheek affectionately. "You're welcome, Draco."

He sulks through dinner, leaving his mother and his wife to carry out polite-bordering-on-friendly conversation. Astoria seems determined to keep the awkward silences to a minimum, and has a seemingly endless supply of conversation starters to pepper Narcissa with. After dessert, Narcissa excuses herself to her rooms and leaves her son and his wife to the table and his petulant silence. Astoria gets up and leaves as well, just as soon as she's finished with her Italian cheesecake.

_I'm sorry _is just as foreign a phrase to Draco as _I love you, _and, like the latter, the former will never be said. He bites his tongue in bed that evening, when he reaches out to touch her and she asks, _so, you're done with your little snit, are you? _He writes his apologies across her skin with his mouth and fingertips and Astoria will never complain. Far more practical than a few begrudged words, really.


	6. bring the sun

vi

_bring the sun_

* * *

"You're going to have to quit smoking," Astoria tells him one evening, sitting on the balcony of their bedroom. He's standing at the balustrade, a newly lit (non-menthol and properly masculine) cigarette in his hand, feeling rather content and wondering if Astoria's recent cranky spell has subsided enough for him to seduce a shag out of her.

He snorts, well-acquainted with this particular conversation. "Let me guess, it's a filthy disgusting habit…here's a light. You know, you could just learn to ask. Marginally fewer words used." He tosses the silver lighter onto the marble table.

She doesn't produce her usual girly menthols from her robe pocket and the lighter sits abandoned. "No, I'm serious. I'd enjoy that last pack. We're quitting. I _incendio-_ed the rest of your supply and you're not getting any more."

_So much for that shag. _"Yeah, that'll stick," he replies, rolling his eyes. "You're going to be crying for nicotine by midnight."

"I should think not," she says stiffly. She's getting polite and that's never a good sign. "Just be fucking grateful you _get _that last pack."

Humoring her, he slid the near-full pack across to sit beside the lighter. "Sure, sure, we'll smoke this pack and be done."

There's a long quiet pause. And then, of all the horrifying things, Astoria bursts into tears. "I _can't," _she bawls, as Draco looks on aghast and completely without any clue what to do with this. "I _can't _because I'm _pregnant _and I'll be god-_fucking_-damned if you're gonna smoke when I _CAN'T _and it's all your fault!_"_

Later, he'll regret that his newly-lit cigarette fell from his hands and down into the gardens because there are precious few in that pack, but at present he can only be vaguely grateful that he didn't go over the balustrade with it, as his nicotine-withdrawal-suffering _pregnant _wife cries messy emotional tears facefirst into the marble tabletop, her hands clutched over her head.

"Pregnant?"

She chucks the lighter at his head by way of an answer and sweeps into the bedroom. He goes to light another cigarette, but then reconsiders. Astoria probably won't look too kindly on him postponing the expected 'comfort me, you wretch, you're the direct cause of my current and future discomfort' to partake in a vice no longer allowed her.

And he's sure as hell going to need that cigarette a bit later; he's already rationing them.

It isn't until Astoria's fallen asleep, exhausted by her emotional implosion, that the concept of 'baby' even connects with 'pregnant.'

He smokes that rationed cigarette with a vengeance and then bins the rest of the pack. And then he gets in bed next to his wife and wraps his arms around her dead weight, kissing her hair. He means 'I love you' but what he breathes into her hair is 'thank you.'

They have a long talk in the morning, while the sun creeps in through curtains drawn on the french doors. Astoria peeks back at him from around the doorway with her 'I'm going to shag you boneless in the very near future' grin before dashing down to the kitchen to get some breakfast to bring back up. He digs the pack out of the bin and hides them.

* * *

oOo

I've had a few people worrying that each chapter is the last. They're not. This story will get marked 'complete' and I'll definitely be making a note of it. So rest assured, there's more to come. :o)


	7. here's to living in the moment

vii

_here's to living in the moment_

* * *

Draco is already so thoroughly sick of his wife by the end of her fifth month of pregnancy he's about to move in with the house elf in its little nook off the pantry. For a man of remarkably little patience, he's performing minor miracles in her presence every day.

He's firmly convinced Astoria has actually vacated her body and sublet it to some strange hybrid of an enraged Ginny Weasley and Hungarian Horntail who occasionally steps out and leaves the place to her weepy, bedraggled Cho-Chang-augurey flatmate.

Lucius Malfoy, newly released from his stint in Azkaban, still has nothing nice to say about his son's wife and her bloodline, and reminds Narcissa constantly of her picturesque pregnancy, of her sweet temper and glowing radiance. Dragon-tempered Astoria, with her blotchy skin and obvious, awkwardly distributed weight gain, is less than appreciative.

Draco keeps Astoria out of Lucius' presence as much as is feasible, for the good of everyone involved. Her incidents of 'accidental' magic tend towards the destructive when Draco's father is around to prod her on into rage. It costs Lucius a lot of money to hush up the visit to St. Mungo's to have his forked tongue taken care of after a particularly out of order comment about Astoria's father as she left the breakfast table, but 'prudent' is not a word anyone has ever used to describe the elder Malfoy. Even the metaphor made literal by an enraged Astoria as she cried furious tears outside the dining room does nothing to still his tongue.

They row about it near constantly, Astoria accusing him of sacrificing her feelings to his father's ego, alternately hissing and wailing in such a way that makes him desperately _miss _her cool, passive anger of days past.

She breaks into one of the arguments they're having some afternoon, some strange, vulnerable emotion stealing across her face as the red anger drains from her expression. He doesn't ask, but she offers up tentatively, "Draco, the baby kicked."

His moods aren't so tempestuous, and he can't quite flip his anger over with the same speed and acuity her pregnancy hormones are endowing her with. When she reaches for his hand to feel, he snatches it away and sneers at her, muttering something dismissive, and her face _crumbles _and it's a hundred times worse than tears. Astoria leaves him behind, speechless at his own cruelty, frozen and feeling lower than a flobberworm in a mud pit. He's made her cry more than a few times, but this is the first time he _intended_ something unkind, even if just for a single frustrated second.

She doesn't come down to dinner and Lucius gloats over her empty chair until Draco snaps. "She's my _wife _and she's carrying _my_ weak blooded Squib kid, deal with it," he snarls, tossing down his knife and fork and ripping the serviette off his lap and nearly tripping over the house elf during his indignant march to the door.

He half-expects to find their bed chamber locked, to hear oak-muffled sobs leaking out from under the heavy door, but the door is flung open and Astoria is sitting outside in the grey misty evening, feet propped on one of the woven-iron chairs, her hands on her stomach and her face rather sad and blank.

And then he misses the wailing, the theatrical, hormonal, over-the-top sadness he's been reviling for the past few weeks. She doesn't speak to him all evening and closes the door of her dressing room behind her when she goes to change into her nightgown.

Daphne arrives the next afternoon for lunch, eight months pregnant herself and with her young daughter in tow, and fixes a sharp eye on him when she smile-sneers at him in a way that shows too many of her pretty, straight white teeth. Nike Finnigan, trailing along behind with a ragged dragon toy, is a beautiful little girl with bright auburn hair and wide green eyes like Astoria's and Daphne's. She has her father's freckles and broad Irish accent, and, according to Daphne, Ruaidhrí the dragon only speaks Irish Gaelic, so unless Nike's directly spoken to in English, she probably won't have much to say to anyone.

But Nike _adores _Draco, going so far as to pardon his ignorance of Gaelic and deigning to speak to him in English. At the lunch—to which he didn't so much accept an invitation, but rather refused to vacate the table until the house elf set another place for him—his is the only lap available, both Daphne and Astoria's obstructed by their pregnancies, so she clambers up without invitation (he'd have something to say to her—or to Daphne—about it, but as he's gate-crashed their luncheon, he's pretty sure he wouldn't get away with it) and remains there, chattering on to him on a dozen subjects that are picked up at a moment's whim and discarded just as quickly, far too fast for Draco to keep up.

It's just as well, because Daphne and Astoria's conversation is rather pointedly exclusive, and Draco is strangely grateful for the little girl using him as a chair and manages a few sentences of conversation with her. It makes him feel rather smugly included. At a point towards the end of the meal, Nike pivots her head to fix him with a very calculating sort of look rather inappropriate for her young face. And then she shakes her head and tells him, "Me da—" she begins, before being cut off by Daphne.

"_My _da, Nike. _My, _not _me," _her mother corrects patiently, stressing her own posh pronunciation, and the girl frowns.

"_My _da says," she corrects, mimicking her mother's inflection with uncanny precision (and more than a touch of cheek) and then forgoes English altogether, with a smart sort of glance over at her mother as though to say 'ha, correct me _now.' _"He says that," she concludes. "But I like you. And I don't think that."

"Well, my gratitude, Miss Finnigan, and my congratulations as well. You've already surpassed your father in wits," Draco drawls. "Keep it up and we might even see you in a house whose maxim is _not_ 'let's jump into the fray and think about it a_fter _we've lost some brain function'."

Daphne's interest is piqued, and suspicion is on her face. "What exactly does that mean, Nike?"

She shrugs her thin shoulders, "It means Da don't like Uncle Draco--don't know the words in English."

"And a good thing, too, I'd imagine," Daphne mutters darkly, no doubt plotting some great punishment for Seamus for using what was most certainly inappropriate language in front of their daughter.

Nike turns back to look at him again. "_She _just thinks you're a fucker," she says baldly, motioning to her mother.

Daphne's mouth tightens up, caught out in hypocrisy, and Astoria laughs—not in the mean, derisive way Draco feels he somehow deserves, but good-naturedly.

"Can't argue with either of you," Draco says calmly, "At least I think not—as soon as I've gotten the English version of the first part, I'll let you know."

Astoria smiles at him and the fight goes away, forgiven.

...for the most part, anyway; she never mentions the baby kicking again, never reaches to take his hand and press it to the fluttering movement. And he's too proud to ask.

Some nights, though, while she sleeps, he stays awake for hours just to feel his son move inside her.

* * *

AN: (a really long one!)

This is almost becoming an actual 'chaptered' deal. ALMOST. Still lacking in the whole 'overall plot' thing, but hey, it's progress. The next part is well begun (which is STRANGE for me) and actually already titled (which is usually the last thing that happens right before I post)

Also, I believe the voting for /dotmoon (dot) net/ 's awards is ending, and my fic _Stick Birds _was nominated. If you have a bit of spare time, might I solicit a vote or two? Also, on the subject of awards, my great thanks to Cuban Sombrero Gal and respitechristopher who nominated _Cauterize _and _When the Free Summer Comes _for the Character Sketch awards_..._it's really an honor to be so considered and the wonderful things you wrote in the nominations were so encouraging.

I'd also like to extend a deep gratitude to all my readers and (especially) my reviewers. There are so many of y'all who are unspeakably loyal and encouraging and I know I'm bad about replying. I'd just like to let you know how supportive you are and how much it means...I've been having a rough time of it lately and it honestly brightens my day to hear how much you've enjoyed my writing. :o) (and on the bright side, i'm back out to the UK in August--not for long, but it's something!)

Finally, dorky aside: Nike was the Greek goddess of victory, so another name in the vein of 'Victoire', in addition to being the athletics company. Girl's gonna get laughed at by some muggleborns at Hogwarts. :o)


	8. for me this is heaven

viii

_for me this is heaven_

* * *

When his son cries for the first time, Draco Malfoy, for about two and a half minutes, is entirely sure that things have never been more right with the world.

"Kid looks like me, thank God," he teases Astoria, leaning down to kiss her brilliantly red, sticky face. "You look like hell."

"Fuck off, Draco," Astoria manages, but it's weak and not fully felt. And she falls quiet, dropping back into the pillows like a marionette with cut strings. He sits down on the edge of the bed, her hand still grasped tightly to his, listening to the squalling music of his firstborn son as though it's the finest symphony ever composed, the slowing, exhausted breathing of his wife the irregular tempo underneath.

The midwitch is cleaning up the baby when Astoria's hand in his, only slightly loosened from her white-knuckled death grip of labor, goes limp. Frighteningly, heart-stoppingly limp. He tears his gaze away from his bawling new son to grin at her and she's paper white, terribly still amidst the bedclothes. The tempo of her breathing is too quiet and nothing is music anymore.

In the time it takes to get the words out of his frozen mouth, the blood begins to spread, wicking into the white linen sheets with sickening speed. He can only curse at the woman cooing over his son, gesturing dumbly at his wife, who is fading into unconsciousness, her eyes rolling back in her head. Her eyelids are grey when they close over the frightening empty whites of her eyes and there doesn't seem to be any blood in her face…it's all running out to stain the silk sheets crimson, there's nothing left to color her skin and she's white-grey.

Astoria's son…his son…is shoved into his unprepared hands as the midwife takes a turn for the serious, trying to save Astoria. _Save her _because she's _dying,_ bleeding fading _dying _in their bed just like that.

It's incredibly surreal. How does something like this just _happen?_ The baby, ugly red and pinched up, is shrieking at the top of his lungs with all the entitlement characteristic of a Malfoy heir, extremely displeased with his entrance into the world. Draco fights the urge to drop him on the ground. All the beauty and magic in this moment is gone, the baby's cries aren't a symphony but a death knell.

This isn't a gift, this isn't life, this isn't a miracle—this is an unfair trade. A son for a wife is the deal rewritten and forced upon him, and there's nothing Draco wouldn't give to undo the bargain.

The midwitch is in a flurry around the bed while Draco stands, dumbstruck and useless, with his crying son in his arms. "Is she breathing?" he asks quietly, panic rising in his throat as he notices how painfully still that scarlet-soaked bed is. "Is she _breathing?_" he roars again when the woman does not answer him.

He somehow finds his way out to the corridor where his mother and father are waiting to greet the new heir. Lucius grumbles something about his new little squib grandson, but seems eager enough to hold the boy. Draco passes him off, silent and unfeeling. His mother notices something wrong, the way Draco shoves the baby off like he can't bear the weight of him in his arms, narrows her eyes and makes to ask.

Even before she can get a syllable out of her mouth, though, Draco grates out, in a low, ugly voice, "He killed her, that little bastard _killed _his mother." Narcissa sucks in a breath like a whipsnap, disbelief on her face.

"She's not…" she trails off, blue Black eyes wide.

"No!" Draco corrects himself vehemently. "She's not…but she's, Astoria's—." He can't finish a sentence, fury and helplessness washing over him.

Even Lucius can't summon up anything to say, the baby is still screaming in his arms but it's like the child isn't there at all. There are no words. Narcissa's hands reach for her son, but he ducks out of them, self-loathing on his face.

"We get started early in this family, don't we?" he rages quietly, his voice, his hands, his entire being shaking under the weight of a hundred ugly emotions. "Not even a half an hour old and he's already a murderer. Bet you're so proud, Dad, your new heir killed his weak-blooded mother," Draco snarls, stalking down the corridor away from the bedroom. No one calls after him.

Draco finds an empty room and presses his fingers hard into his scalp, silently screaming anguish and hopeless, helpless rage. He tries to blame the baby, but it's _his _fault, _he _got her pregnant. He made her cry and teased her mercilessly and let his father insult her and never, ever had a kind word to say, never told her how beautiful he thought she was, even with the hundred discomforts her pregnancy had brought with it.

And the last words he said to her were 'You look like hell.' His mind is already reeling on the things he should have said, the things he's never said.

He's going to burn that bed. He's going to burn the house down, if he can, burn down every memory of Astoria pale and quiet in their bed. Throw himself on the fire, maybe, just because it would be bright and beautiful and everything he would never ever find again in a world without Astoria.

It feels like Astoria's already dead and all the light is dead alongside. There is nothing in the world to see by, he is adrift in darkness.

His mother finds him. "Draco," she ventures carefully, feeling blindly around in the darkness of the room but knowing better than to turn on the lights.

"Is she dead?" he asks, his voice a cold chunk of black marble. He's curled up in a chair, silhouetted against the twilight framed in the windows.

"No, she's not." She doesn't say Astoria's better; she's just not dead. "Draco, your son…"

"What about him?" There isn't any affection, any warmth at all.

"Did you have a name for him? I never heard…"

"Call him Scorpius." Astoria hates that name, had absolutely refused to even consider it. It fits well enough, though. The little monster is poison. And it isn't as though his mother is going to be around to object to the name.

Narcissa doesn't argue. "Scorpius what?"

"Whatever." Draco doesn't give a fuck.

Narcissa speaks again. "Won't you—."

"No," Draco cuts her off.

He sneaks back down the hallway late that night, into the quiet of their bedroom. It's dark in there.

"Jesus, Draco, that was a little dramatic, wasn't it?" Astoria's voice is scornful in the dark. In the dim starlight from the uncurtained windows, her skin glows moon grey. The baby against her breast is white.

He's speechless. How did no one bother to tell him that she was alive, conscious, speaking?

She reads the question somehow, seemingly pulls the thought from his head and answers his silence. "I told them not to tell you, I wanted to see how long you'd act like that." His vision sharpens. She's not even looking at him, her eyes are locked on the leech on her breast with a strange and foreign love glazing them.

"You unimaginable _bitch_," he breathes, his voice almost lost in some vacuum of rage and overwhelming relief. "I thought you were _dying,_ I thought you were _dead."_

She ignores him. "Come see your son, Draco, he's beautiful." He is pulled to them almost against his will, the pair glowing perfect in the moon-and-star wash from the windows.

The thing in her arms is new, somehow not what it was before. In Astoria's warm white arms, he isn't a monster anymore. Forgiveness comes easy when Astoria's there, utter adoration and maternal love in her eyes. She wouldn't love him anymore if he didn't love their baby, and that's what spurs it first. He would chafe at coming second if he dared, but it's second or last and Draco's learned to compromise.

And then he looks in his son's blue-grey eyes, already the same shade as his, and notices the curve of Astoria's upper lip mirrored in Scorpius. He sees him. And that's the end of his short-lived conditional love.

He slips behind Astoria, replacing the piled pillows that are propping her up. His arms go around her and she collapses weakly back against his chest as Scorpius's tiny breaths wheeze out in the dark.

He kisses her neck gently. "He is beautiful," he agrees softly.

"Good thing, too, with that effing stupid name you gave him," she murmurs sleepily.

"'Effing', Astoria?" There's a teasing grin as he presses his cheek into her hair, his eyes glued on his son.

"No cursing in front of the baby...we keep up with the way we talk, his first word is going to be embarrassing."

She falls asleep against his chest a few minutes later, joining Scorpius in unconsciousness.

He stays awake all night to listen to the music of them breathing together.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **SO sorry this took so long! I got a bit hung up on some parts...it was not easy bringing this together, so I hope everyone's happy with it. For all the agonizing I did over it, I feel like it turned out pretty well!


	9. beautiful things

_Beautiful Things  
_

_

* * *

  
_

Astoria is Scorpius' world, and Draco somehow finds himself envying that.

She's the one who knows his cries, knows when to change his nappy and when to feed him, when he wants a lullaby or when he just needs to be walked endlessly through the long halls of the house. She's the one he needs at night; even when it's Draco that gets out of bed to collect him, his pitiful wails generally continue until he's in Astoria's arms. She makes him laugh with a silly face; Draco only seems to make him cry.

"You don't talk to him enough," Astoria informs him one night over Scorpius' wails. He's trying to hand their inconsolable son off to her, and she is having _none _of it. Her pillow is clutched over her head and her face is grey with exhaustion and exasperation. "Walk him, bounce him, make faces, _talk to him. _You have to talk to babies, Draco, you can't just stare at them."

"I can't do it, I can't stop him crying. I think he's hungry." He shoots her a commanding sort of glance. "You need to feed him."

"My spot in bed isn't even warm yet; I _just _got back in bed, I fed him less than ten minutes ago, he is _not _hungry. Would you just deal with it?" She burrows her face back into the mattress, the pillow a damper over her head. He goes to tap her shoulder again, but the lines of furious tension that snake through her back give him pause.

He pads back into the joining nursery and shuts the door behind him, a nasty scowl on his face. Holding Scorpius up, Draco regards the baby at an arm's length. "You really need to stop crying," he informs Scorpius conversationally, with no trace of amusement on his face. "I'll buy you something fun when you're big enough to appreciate it if you just stop crying for me now."

The baby seems almost taken aback at the calm, adult-conversation rhythm of his father's voice, and stares at him wonderingly. And obediently stops.

"Right," Draco nods, tucking Scorpius back against his chest and strolling through the nursery. "I can see you've got some business sense in your head already, an eye for a good bargain. Good. I'm not averse to bribery, I'll have you know, so please, work that to your advantage. And mine."

He stops talking and looks down, and almost immediately Scorpius' mouth, which had been set in an 'o' of wonderment, begins to pull back in the slow-motion way that augurs a very loud squalling fit.

And he tries to think of anything to say, any combination of syllables to stem off the crying. "For god's sakes, don't marry a Weasley!" is what pops out of his mouth, almost panicked.

"Don't," he advises, mentally dancing as Scorpius' face relaxes back, his curiosity piqued and disaster averted. "I will approve next to _anyone," _Draco promises generously. "You can even marry a half-blood if you want, but for my sake, please not a Weasley. Or a Potter," he tacks on hastily. "Although I suppose they rather count under Weasley." He holds him out at arms length, something Astoria does when words aren't enough to distract him. "They aren't that good looking, really. Any son of mine can do better than that. So don't go falling in love with one of them, hmm? Plenty of pretty girls out there to admire you as you deserve."

Scorpius is looking at him with that particular brand of baby wonderment, his head falling back a little on his unstable neck as though he's trying to lean back far enough to take in the full impression of his father.

"Take your mother, for example. Not a Weasley. Not a Potter. Sort of a half-blood...but your grandfather Hector is a pretty decent man. And a piece of advice: the right girl is worth thieving, cheating...anything of the sort. And a secret, don't tell your mother: girls are better when you steal them."

Draco grins at the boy, maybe a little bit smugly.

He bursts into tears again, and his father grinds his back teeth in frustration, refusing to feel like a failure. Draco tries the walking; Astoria is often lamenting the fact that she gets out of bed in the morning and her back already hurts from standing. That seems to work, and Scorpius settles back down, his eyelids dropping down.

The walking gets old fast. The nursery is far from small, but there's only so many times one can circle the room. Draco tries to memorize the movement, feeling a little superior in intellect. Had Astoria never thought of this? He wonders as he settles down into the plush armchair, being careful to keep the same movement in his arms. Like a baby can tell if he's sitting or standing, so long as the motion is the same.

Scorpius' eyes shoot open almost immediately, and another bawl follows soon after. No amount of gentle motion seems to assuage him, and eventually, Draco reaches the conclusion that bouncing up and down in an armchair is undignified and, as Scorpius is still loudly proclaiming his dissatisfaction to the world, ultimately ineffectual. The minute Draco's feet are back under him, Scorpius stops crying, a beatific little curve to his mouth. Draco can't help but notice, with a vague sense of resentment, that it's nearly the same sort of satisfied look Astoria gets when she's won her own way.

"Little bastard," he mutters affectionately. "No rest for the wicked, I guess you're a big believer in that? At least you're equal opportunity; your mum fell asleep in the shower last week."

The walking seems to work for a while, then fails. After a nappy change, the walking works again for a little longer…and then fails again. And this time, there is no consolation to be had. Astoria wanders in a little later, holding her hands out for her baby, not bothering to speak over the incessant wail.

"I got it," Draco draws his son back against his chest, narrowing his eyes. She looks at him skeptically, cocking her hip to the side in impatience.

"I don't think you do." She shakes her outstretched hands expectantly. "Give me my son, Draco."

"I can do it!" Draco insists mulishly, turning his back and holding Scorpius protectively to his chest.

"And I thought I'd have another year or two until the toddler tantrums and excessive use of the word _no_," Astoria muses, almost to herself, shaking her head in the dim, pre-dawn light. More impatiently, she sweeps around to face him, her arms out for Scorpius. "Unless you've developed some interesting anatomical anomalies I'm not familiar with, you really can't."

Draco looks at her blankly. "He's hungry," Astoria says flatly. "That," she informs him, "is the 'I'm hungry' cry. He's making the little sucky movements with his mouth. After I feed him, you are _more_ than free to carry on with entertaining him or getting him to sleep or teaching him how to pick up witches. Whatever. You can go do that, but right now he's crying because he's hungry."

"Oh." Draco hands him over without another word, trying not to feel sheepish.

"Sit down, Draco." He settles down onto the upholstered chaise and she wedges in next to him, pulling her nightgown open without any ceremony. Scorpius latches on with a greedy fervor, pausing only intermittently to breathe and make little contented sighs.

"You'd think we're starving the kid," Draco says, throwing an arm over the back of the sofa, around Astoria's shoulders.

"You were trying to," Astoria laughs, tilting her head back to kiss his jaw.

"I think sleep deprivation is classed as a form of torture. Justifiable retaliatory measures, in my opinion," Draco says breezily, and she laughs again.

Draco is still waiting for her laughter to get old, for that strange bit of proud elation that rises in his chest when he makes her smile to disappear. It hasn't yet. He wonders if (when, inevitably) he makes Scorpius smile or laugh--or something more than just _not cry--_it will be like that. He's almost disappointed when Scorpius falls asleep against Astoria's chest, and _stays _asleep while Astoria's transferring him into his cot like she was handling an American Quod liable to explode at any moment, and he's able to fall back into their disheveled bed with Astoria.

Almost, but not really. He's sure to cry tomorrow, too. He can work on that smile then.


	10. on a sunday

_On a Sunday_

_

* * *

  
_

Easter at Green Lawn is rather a loud affair, with Scorpius and Daphne's new little boy having squalling matches and Draco and Seamus shooting quiet barbs at each other, over the rims of raised glasses and under concealing hands and out of the corners of their mouths, but only when they both are relatively certain their wives are otherwise occupied. Hector makes polite, friendly conversation with both of them, while his wife Sophie fusses over Daphne and Astoria and their respective sons.

She attempts to fuss over Nike for a few minutes, and then wisely decides to leave her well enough alone. It's the tragic equivalent of fussing over a Skrewt, but Sophie has more sense than Hagrid, thankfully.

Nike Finnegan, it is discovered, simply does not like babies. Daphne and Astoria set her up on the sofa with the two new babies for photos. They seem to adore her, cooing and gurgling contentedly, hands grasping at her holiday dress. Seamus and Draco grudgingly share a laugh over the mutinous, obstinate look on Nike's face as her mother and Aunt fuss at her to smile pretty. She's dolled up in lilac, a spring green ribbon in her hair, but she's got the look of an impatient goblin on her face, eyeing Scorpius and Sean unfavorably. After the round of photographs are taken, Nike imperiously informs her uncle Draco that 'these can be taken away now,' with a lofty little wave at the squirming babies propped up against her side.

She fluffs her dress, frowning at the crinkles in the skirt where the babies grasped at the fabric. "Da, _my dress!_ They messed it up!" she complains, and Seamus waves her off; "Your Mam can fix it, I'd probably set you on fire, love."

"But Sean did it!" She's looking up at her father expectantly, as though expecting him to go snatch her infant brother from Daphne's arms and chuck him out the window for his offense.

Seamus' strained patience is rather amusing—Draco can nearly see him biting back the curses to speak to his daughter in a calm, rational fashion. "He's a baby, Nike, shouldn't let him touch your dress, then." This is not an adequate answer for a four-year-old girl.

"But—but Mummy _made _me!" Her mouth flips in an exaggerated display of injury and, sensing her father's diminished patience, she flounces off to kick at a chair leg and scuff up her shiny patent leather shoes until her mother yells at her.

Seamus swears under his breath and says to Draco (out of sheer lack of any other audience), "And all this from a girl who threw the biggest fit this morning when Daphne tried to brush her hair, to say nothing of the tantrum over that fucking dress—she hated it this morning, she ripped up the petticoat and I thought Daphne was going to go spare."

"Apparently she does not hate it enough, so long as it can be used as a means to a tantrum. Congratulations, Finnegan, she should be setting your shack on fire any day now."

Seamus doesn't even rise to the taunt, only nods vaguely in some form of agreement as he watches Daphne pulling Nike into the corner for a 'time-out.' "Keep having boys, Malfoy," he mutters, shaking his head. "They can't be this much trouble."

"Oh, just think, though!" Draco enthuses, "In decade or two, you'll be handing over that little darling to a man she'll be able to frustrate _far _more than she'll ever frustrate you. Should set her on one of Potter's sons, or Weasley's. Those men seem to like shrews."

Draco rather enjoys the blanched look that washes across Seamus' face at the thought of a grown-up, grown-away Nike and the no-good little bastard who would be stealing her away someday—and who was at the moment probably, out there somewhere, attempting to shove a whole Cadbury cream egg into his mouth and drooling chocolate. Hatred glows from Seamus' face anyway, and he leaves Draco standing alone with his drink to rescue Nike from time-out.

Seamus seems to have a newfound appreciation of his daughter's obstinacy, perhaps hoping her extreme predilection for the word 'no' might continue on for the next three or four decades, at least where young men were concerned.

Draco is a little blindsided when Astoria shoves what looks like a very large stuffed rabbit into his hands. Wait, no—too heavy for a stuffed rabbit. Instead, Draco's firstborn son and heir is looking a little too cozy in a fluffy white bunny suit, with fuzzy white ears sticking up from the hood; he smiles beatifically up at his father.

Draco stares at the child in his arms as though he's actually grown rabbit ears which, really, would probably have been less upsetting. One of the ears flops into Scorpius's face and he blows a spit bubble. Draco looks up at his wife in disbelief and betrayal. "What the hell, Astoria? What have you done to my kid?"

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" Seamus is loud, clutching Nike closer to his chest as though the little yellow duck gumming the fabric of his sleeve and smiling toothlessly at his father is contagious. Daphne shoots a glare at him, cuddling her son back. Seamus is not dissuaded. "What is my son dressed as?"

"It's sweet!" Daphne says, maybe a bit too firmly, almost like she's pushing the words out past clenched teeth, too many of which are showing in her pinned-up smile.

Astoria jumps in with a similar tone, glaring death at her husband. "Sophie gave them to the boys, wasn't that thoughtful?" She smiles over at her stepmother, who is, apparently, a very sweet woman with very dubious tastes for little boys. Even Hector is looking at the boys with a subtle distaste. The words, the tone the wives are using—it's as good as a smack upside the head.

Seamus and Draco fall silent, adequately chastened.

"_Queer," _Nike proclaims simply, from her perch in her father's arms, and her mother gasps.

"Where did you hear that word? That's terrible, you can't say that! Where did you hear that?" Daphne insists, falling all over herself in shock.

Nike looks incriminatingly over at her father, who seems torn between cowering from his wife, scolding his daughter, or pissing his pants laughing. Nike reconsiders, though: "Telly."

Draco can't help himself; he laughs. Seamus laughs as well. Even _Hector _laughs (though very quietly, and behind his wife's back).

They both sleep in guest rooms. Astoria and Daphne are _horrified,_ poor Sophie is deeply offended, Nike has all of her sweets confiscated, and Hector expresses his condolences as he heads to bed (and offers his sons-in-law his suggestion to 'think of the sofa' next time the urge to laugh in an inappropriate situation arises).

Draco shakes Seamus' hand as they depart, and sends Nike a top-of-the-line toy broomstick the next day.

* * *

I couldn't help myself. Happy Easter!


End file.
